I've been teaching myself some soldering. By teaching, i mean making all the mistakes a nub can manage. With some help from some Olymega folks (thanks Jay and Ross!) we've cobbled together a dimmer switch to an outlet for a cheapo weller iron.

Why not get a proper temp-controlled iron? #reasons

Because my electrical engineering skills are meager to say the most, i have some questions about the setup.

When i check the voltage with no load, it's either on or off, when i add a load (the iron), it behaves normally.

The dimmer recommends a 40w minimum load. my iron is only 25 watts. Should i add a lightbulb or some other load to push it up? Or will it "be ok?"

i know this is not a temp-controlled setup, but my iron gets hot enough that the solder beads on the tip. So i think i just need to turn it down enough for whatever i'm working with (mostly just bumbling atm).

you're quite prodigious with the project diaries... i've been reading about converting a pc power supply to a bench supply. i did a super crude adoption of a PS for a project once, but then i needed the computer, so away went that and never revisited it. Yours is so much more sophisticated... when i'm through with the current glut of work, i'd like to look at building something instead of just buying it.

I have decided that those Tenma cheap soldering stations are only good for the holder. The irons themselves are such cheap junk as to be useless. Two have already had the tip retainer just fall out of the iron while in use. They all constantly unscrew themselves.

I mean constantly. In a 10 minute soldering session, I find I have to tighten the ring several times.

I have bought one iron that claims to have built-in temperature control with feedback. I intend to test it, and if I find that it is satisfactory, buy three more and put them in the Tenma bases. So far, I'm not getting my hopes up.

The reason I don't just buy $60 or $70 temperature controlled soldering stations is that I'm trying to find an inexpensive but good iron to suggest to members. I may be chasing a unicorn. So far, all of the sub $15 irons with control built into the pencil are only power control, not temperature controlled. The cheapest I've found is $30 with an LCD digital display from Banggood.

Weller sells a 25W fixed soldering pencil with LED lights for $15 with Prime shipping. I used an iron similar to that for years.http://amzn.to/2iwsylG

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